FRANCIS PARKMAN

He told the red man's story; far and wide
He searched the unwritten annals of his race;
He sat a listener at the Sachem's side,
He tracked the hunter through his wild-wood chase.

High o'er his head the soaring eagle screamed;
The wolfs long howl rang nightly; through the vale
Tramped the lone bear; the panther's eyeballs gleamed;
The bison's gallop thundered on the gale.

Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife,
Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize:
Which swarming host should mould a nation's life;
Which royal banner flout the western skies.

Long raged the conflict; on the crimson sod
Native and alien joined their hosts in vain;
The lilies withered where the lion trod,
Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged plain.

A nobler task was theirs who strove to win
The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold;
To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of sin;
These labors, too, with loving grace he told.

Halting with feeble step, or bending o'er
The sweet-breathed roses which he loved so well,
While through long years his burdening cross he bore,
From those firm lips no coward accents fell.

A brave bright memory! His the stainless shield
No shame defaces and no envy mars!
When our far future's record is unsealed,
His name will shine among its morning stars.
--Holmes.


FRANCIS PARKMAN
(1822-1893)

The stories in this volume deal, for the most part, with single
actions, generally with deeds of war and feats of arms. In this
one I desire to give if possible the impression, for it can be no
more than an impression, of a life which in its conflicts and its
victories manifested throughout heroic qualities. Such qualities
can be shown in many ways, and the field of battle is only one of
the fields of human endeavor where heroism can be displayed.

Francis Parkman was born in Boston on September 16, 1822. He came
of a well-known family, and was of a good Puritan stock. He was
rather a delicate boy, with an extremely active mind and of a
highly sensitive, nervous organization. Into everything that
attracted him he threw himself with feverish energy. His first
passion, when he was only about twelve years old, was for
chemistry, and his eager boyish experiments in this direction
were undoubtedly injurious to his health. The interest in
chemistry was succeeded by a passion for the woods and the
wilderness, and out of this came the longing to write the history
of the men of the wilderness, and of the great struggle between
France and England for the control of the North American
continent. All through his college career this desire was with
him, and while in secret he was reading widely to prepare himself
for his task, he also spent a great deal of time in the forests
and on the mountains. To quote his own words, he was "fond of
hardships, and he was vain of enduring them, cherishing a
sovereign scorn for every physical weakness or defect; but
deceived, moreover, by the rapid development of frame and sinew,
which flattered him into the belief that discipline sufficiently
unsparing would harden him into an athlete, he slighted the
precautions of a more reasonable woodcraft, tired old foresters
with long marches, stopped neither for heat nor for rain, and
slept on the earth without blankets." The result was that his
intense energy carried him beyond his strength, and while his
muscles strengthened and hardened, his sensitive nervous
organization began to give way. It was not merely because he led
an active outdoor life. He himself protests against any such
conclusion, and says that "if any pale student glued to his desk
here seek an apology for a way of life whose natural fruit is
that pallid and emasculate scholarship, of which New England has
had too many examples, it will be far better that this sketch had
not been written. For the student there is, in its season, no
better place than the saddle, and no better companion than the
rifle or the oar."

The evil that was done was due to Parkman's highly irritable
organism, which spurred him to excess in everything he undertook.
The first special sign of the mischief he was doing to himself
and his health appeared in a weakness of sight. It was essential
to his plan of historical work to study not only books and
records but Indian life from the inside. Therefore, having
graduated from college and the law-school, he felt that the time
had come for this investigation, which would enable him to gather
material for his history and at the same time to rest his eyes.
He went to the Rocky Mountains, and after great hardships, living
in the saddle, as he said, with weakness and pain, he joined a
band of Ogallalla Indians. With them he remained despite his
physical suffering, and from them he learned, as he could not
have learned in any other way, what Indian life really was.

The immediate result of the journey was his first book, instinct
with the freshness and wildness of the mountains and the
prairies, and called by him "The Oregon Trail." Unfortunately,
the book was not the only outcome. The illness incurred during
his journey from fatigue and exposure was followed by other
disorders. The light of the sun became insupportable, and his
nervous vous system was entirely deranged. His sight was now so
impaired that he was almost blind, and could neither read nor
write. It was a terrible prospect for a brilliant and ambitious
man, but Parkman faced it unflinchingly. He devised a frame by
which he could write with closed eyes, and books and manuscripts
were read to him. In this way he began the history of "The
Conspiracy of Pontiac," and for the first half-year the rate of
composition covered about six lines a day. His courage was
rewarded by an improvement in his health, and a little more quiet
in nerves and brain. In two and a half years he managed to
complete the book. He then entered upon his great subject of
"France in the New World." The material was mostly in manuscript,
and had to be examined, gathered, and selected in Europe and in
Canada. He could not read, he could write only a very little and
that with difficulty, and yet he pressed on. He slowly collected
his material and digested and arranged it, using the eyes of
others to do that which he could not do himself, and always on
the verge of a complete breakdown of mind and body. In 1851 he
had an effusion of water on the left knee, which stopped his
outdoor exercise, on which he had always largely depended. All
the irritability of the system then centered in the head,
resulting in intense pain and in a restless and devouring
activity of thought. He himself says: "The whirl, the confusion,
and strange, undefined tortures attending this condition are only
to be conceived by one who has felt them." The resources of
surgery and medicine were exhausted in vain. The trouble in the
head and eyes constantly recurred. In 1858 there came a period
when for four years he was incapable of the slightest mental
application, and the attacks varied in duration from four hours
to as many months. When the pressure was lightened a little he
went back to his work. When work was impossible, he turned to
horticulture, grew roses, and wrote a book about the cultivation
of those flowers which is a standard authority.

As he grew older the attacks moderated, although they never
departed. Sleeplessness pursued him always, the slightest
excitement would deprive him of the power of exertion, his sight
was always sensitive, and at times he was bordering on blindness.
In this hard-pressed way he fought the battle of life. He says
himself that his books took four times as long to prepare and
write as if he had been strong and able to use his faculties.
That this should have been the case is little wonder, for those
books came into being with failing sight and shattered nerves,
with sleeplessness and pain, and the menace of insanity ever
hanging over the brave man who, nevertheless, carried them
through to an end.

Yet the result of those fifty years, even in amount, is a noble
one, and would have been great achievement for a man who had
never known a sick day. In quality, and subject, and method of
narration, they leave little to be desired. There, in Parkman's
volumes, is told vividly, strongly, and truthfully, the history
of the great struggle between France and England for the mastery
of the North American continent, one of the most important events
of modern times. This is not the place to give any critical
estimate of Mr. Parkman's work. It is enough to say that it
stands in the front rank. It is a great contribution to history,
and a still greater gift to the literature of this country. All
Americans certainly should read the volumes in which Parkman has
told that wonderful story of hardship and adventure, of fighting
and of statesmanship, which gave this great continent to the
English race and the English speech. But better than the
literature or the history is the heroic spirit of the man, which
triumphed over pain and all other physical obstacles, and brought
a work of such value to his country and his time into existence.
There is a great lesson as well as a lofty example in such a
career, and in the service which such a man rendered by his life
and work to literature and to his country. On the tomb of the
conqueror of Quebec it is written: "Here lies Wolfe victorious."
The same epitaph might with entire justice be carved above the
grave of Wolfe's historian.

****

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